Monthly Archives: December 2015

The meaning of Christmas is elusive. For some it’s a season of consumer extravaganzas and a boon for business. For others it’s profoundly religious. In places it’s fallen prey to partisan and tribal chicanery. It can be a time of happiness, angst or peace. Even the date of Jesus’s birth is elusive: December 25 is celebrated, but theological and scholarly debates rage over evidence of a spring birth. Then there’s the ongoing speculation that early Christians designated Christmas to co-opt long-established Saturnalia and solstice rituals.

To almost all of this I say, ‘bah,’ to all humbugs. Christmas is –indisputably — a historic, storied and rich tradition. And as with all traditions we residents of this globalized and multicultural world can choose, consciously, how to commemorate it. From my own northern perch in Canada, I relish the promise of longer days following the Dec. 21 winter solstice, and bask in the glow of Christmas lights on the dark, dark nights. I enjoy some seasonal music and the glitzy clash of colours. I respect the significance of Christmas to my religious friends. But most of all, I cherish Christmas as a time to exchange a happy cheer — “Merry Christmas!” — with total strangers on the street, neighbours, friends, and family.

Facts and Opinions is now on our annual break, with a reduced schedule until we return January 8th. We leave you with photos by Greg Locke, from the annual Mummer’s Parade and Pub Crawl in St John’s, Newfoundland, earlier this month. (This provides the best view.) We trust that you’ll find many other stories worthy of your holiday reading time in the trove we offer, from our latest Contents, to the overflowing vaults in our Reports,Opinion-Features, and Photo-essay sections. Thank you for your interest and support for our work in 2015.

A ballet dancer holding a puppet prepares behind the curtain for a performance of Nacho Duato’s “The Nutcracker” at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia November 21, 2015. For theatregoers in St Petersburg, Nacho Duato’s “The Nutcracker” demonstrates the global appeal of a Christmas classic. When the curtain rises at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, among the oldest opera and ballet houses in Russia, it’s the culmination of hundreds of hours of toil and sweat by dancers, costume makers, set designers and musicians playing the famous score by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. REUTERS/Grigory Dukor

Since German fantasy/horror author E.T.A. Hoffmann penned his 1816 novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the bizarre and charming tale has inspired and entertained, even as Hoffmann’s name is overshadowed by others more famous. The ballet The Nutcracker, by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is a seasonal staple, and here photographer Grigory Dukor has done it justice in this week’s photo essay from St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre. It is a sumptuous feast for the eyes; the only pity is that images deserving of vast canvases are here confined to screens. Enjoy this weeks photo-essay, The Nutcracker, here.

I’ve tried hard to avoid food from China, for years and years. Jonathan Manthorpe‘s International Affairs column this week is a disturbing explanation of why everyone should. But here’s the thing: we consumers are all complicit in China’s heartbreaking disaster. We contribute to it every time we buy a throw-away Christmas bauble, a soon-discarded cheap shirt, a breakable toy or electronic gadgets, from anywhere lacking regulation, and offering “cheap” labour. And even as Westerners deregulate our own environments for the sake of a phantom economy, we should brace ourselves from the fallout of China’s troubles, in the form of global security, migration, and toxins that move quickly around our small planet. Nothing is really cheap. Except us, maybe. In his column, China’s soil as poisonous as its air and water, Manthorpe writes that deadly soil pollution in China is as extensive as the degradation of its air and water: only just over 11 per cent of China’s land is suitable for agriculture, and as much as 20 per cent is so contaminated by heavy metals that food produced on it is toxic. Click here for Manthorpe’s column.

Next up, Facts and Opinions turns our attention to the economy, the culture of fear, and the courts:

The case of Arthur Kent versus Postmedia Network was heard in an Alberta court after years of legal wrangling. The long-running defamation lawsuit pitted Canada’s largest newspaper publisher against an award-winning war correspondent who left journalism to enter provincial politics. He sued over a 2008 column Kent called “poisonously false.”

For many years I have had two particular pictures above my desk at work. One is from the mid-90s, of a Bosnian Serb executing a man in cold blood. The other is of a star, the same size as our own sun, going nova. I call them my perspective pictures. They are very helpful lately, because I currently live in the U.S., which has lost all sense of perspective.

Former colleagues paint a picture of U.S. Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen as a pragmatic economist who is ready to adjust course when necessary, but one who relies on data and economic theory rather than guesswork or hunches.

Last but not least, we turn the Force. You didn’t really think we’d ignore Star Wars, did you?

For nearly 40 years, the phrase “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” has resonated in popular culture – forever linked to the iconic opening credits of Star Wars. When I watched the movie for the first time in 1978, at the tender age of ten, I was instantly entranced by its visions of alien worlds, lightsaber battles and the mysterious Force that “binds the galaxy together”.

Brian Brennan was told he could interview Sophia Loren so long as he didn’t ask her about two things … go to Brief Encounters page

Set aside quality time over the holiday to enjoy Brian Brennan’s Brief Encounters with a star-studded cast of 64 entertainers. (Modestly-priced subscription required, see below*. If you’re a subscriber and lack your pass code, please email editor@factsandopinions.com)

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Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen speaks at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Washington in Washington December 2, 2015. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

The world’s money people have the jitters ahead of a historic U.S. Federal Reserve decision on American interest rates, expected Wednesday. If rates go up, it would be the first time in more than nine years. Analysts are busy predicting either disaster or a boon. The decision may be the biggest development since the global financial crisis.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Janet Yellen is guiding the Federal Reserve towards its first rate rise in a decade armed with traditional economic models that some economists worry could fail her in a world of massive money printing and near zero rates.

The 69-year-old economist argues the time is coming for a rate-lift-off even though inflation has yet to accelerate, trusting decades of studies that suggest a tight labour market eventually creates inflationary pressures.

It is a risky wager considering that global inflation is at historic lows and many central banks remain in an easing mode as their economies struggle to get any traction.

If she is right, Yellen, who has already presided over the end of the Fed’s bond-buying stimulus programme, will cement her reputation and that of her “dashboard” that relies on long-established relationships between jobs, wages and prices.

If she is wrong, the Fed could join the European Central Bank and the central banks of Sweden, Israel and Canada, which have all tried, but failed, to escape the drag of zero rates in the wake of the 2007-09 financial crisis. …. click here to continue reading.

Once, during slow spells in a long-ago night desk job, I started a game to help keep me alert: I inserted the word “kerfuffle” into as many news stories as were appropriate. It amused me, especially after I inveigled others to play. (Did I mention slow spells?)

Today I’m amused to find a science version of this word game. The BMJ, a high-browed, peer-reviewed medical journal, reports on an “exponential” increase in references to BoB Dylan.

“In 2014, it was revealed that a group of scientists at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden had been sneaking the lyrics of Bob Dylan into their papers as part of a long-running bet,” said a press release announcing results of an investigation into this behaviour.

Researchers found at least 213 cases, going back to 1970 and lately increasing in incidence, of scientists citing Dylan in biomedical papers: The Times They Are A-Changin’ (many editorials); Blowin’ In The Wind (an article about hang gliding risks); “Knockin’ on pollen’s door” (a report on cell imaging); and “Like a rolling histone” (on an epigenetics study).

Addiction is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life. By that definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet. .… read the story

On the 35th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, 600 people sang Imagine, as part of a fund-raiser to sponsor a Syrian family:

Alongside the seasonal chorus of carols, a children’s choir put on a production “Welcome to Canada Syrian Refugees.” In Arabic, the boys and girls performed a historical song sung to the Prophet Mohamed when he sought refuge from Makkah to Medina:

Saudi Arabia held rare elections this weekend. For the first time since a ban on their participation was lifted, Saudi women voted — and several were elected to municipal councils. As the BBC reported, “Elections of any kind are rare in the Saudi kingdom – Saturday was only the third time in history that Saudis had gone to the polls.”

Marine Le Pen in 2012. Photo by Jannick Jeremy/Wikipedia

Meantime in France, strategic tactics and a late surge in voter turnout dashed the ambitions of the country’s anti-immigration, anti-European Union populist National Front. “The far-right party in France, the National Front (FN), failed to win a single region in elections Sunday despite record results in the first round, as voters flocked to traditional parties to keep them out of power, according to early estimates,” reported Agence France-Presse.

National Front leader Marine Le Pen lashed out with bizarre accusations of “intellectual terrorism” and being “undemocratic” after the majority of voters and the mainstream parties worked together to overcome her party’s ambition to rule.

What is most interesting is that Le Pen would have prevailed under the winner-take-all systems used in many countries, notably highly-polarized U.S., Canada and Britain. (Disclosure: I support proportional representation.)

Democracy — our ongoing, optimistic experiment in human agency, raised its head this weekend. And for today at least, in two places at least, it kept it.

Stories currently on ourContents page include a focus on Climate, China’s impact on housing bubbles, religious extremists in the US, Photo-essays including Reuters’ Photos of the Year, and a trove of eclectic great reads available nowhere else.

“Our economic system funnels our will into the pursuit of material prosperity and comfort. This is the very opposite of freedom. It stifles creativity and forces our life energy inwards instead of outwards, turning us into what Nietzsche describes as “the sick animal”. Despite our material prosperity we suffer from “affluenza” and write self-help books to each other in an attempt to diagnose and treat the panoply of mental and physical afflictions caused by our wealth.

“The fact that our economic system is a social construct means that we have made a choice, even if an unconscious one, and that we can remake that choice.” …. Click to read Warwick Smith’s essay.*

The global climate summit in Paris agreed a landmark accord on Saturday, setting the course for a historic transformation of the world’s fossil fuel-driven economy within decades in a bid to arrest global warming.

I wonder how many of the delegates in Paris realise that they have just created the mother of all “take-back schemes”. The Paris emissions cuts aren’t enough — we’ll have to put carbon back in the ground.

“The Paris Agreement is adopted,” said French foreign minister Laurent Fabius late Saturday at the Paris climate summit. Weary delegates cheered and applauded the global agreement on tackling climate change, reached by 195 countries after years of preparation and two weeks of grinding negotiations.

“The most difficult part is over,” said Fabius, banging a green gavel to signal the deal. The negotiations are done, the deal is made. And now the hard work begins.

F&O will provide context and commentary in the coming week. The massive agreement on climate change measures includes financial pledges to help developing nations; hold the temperature increase to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and seek to limit it to 1.5 degrees; reach peak greenhouse gas emissions “as soon as possible;” and take stock in 2023 of success in curbing greenhouse gases. Read the agreement here on the site of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

War, the most costly and damaging human activity, is outside the scope of Paris climate talks. “If the war was ranked as a country in terms of emissions, it would emit more CO2 each year than 139 of the world’s nations do annually, more than 60 percent of all countries, said one report.

The collective Assemble, winner of the Turner Prize 2015, had a major role in a successful urban regeneration project. It’s a significant project worthy of recognition by a major national award –although an art prize may surprise.

From the migration crisis in Europe to hippos on the loose in Tbilisi and rioters attacking a policewoman in Burundi, Reuters photographers tell the story behind some of the most iconic pictures of the year.

Far more people die horribly in the world’s benighted places than die by guns in the United States, and yet American gun violence hogs global attention. The reason is simple: the American dream was once the world’s dream of a good life. That’s at least the PR spin: America the great, a beacon of justice and ‘freedom,’ the City on the Hill, self-styled leader of the free world.

Superpower America affects everyone and everything, psychologically and physically. And when the American dream turns to a nightmare, everybody awakes in a cold sweat.

This month Syria suffers, India and England flood, and the world’s fate may hang on a climate summit in terrorized Paris. But it’s the gun violence in the U.S. that obsesses us, from its garden-variety slaughters — like a seven-year-old girl shot dead Dec. 3 by a mentally deranged man — to recent mass killings at an abortion clinic and a Christmas party.

The results of gun violence in the U.S. are in the same order of magnitude as the fruits of terrorism in the entire world. The Swiss also have firearms readily available, but they do not massacre each other at nearly the same rate as the Americans.

Visitors and ecological stands are reflected on a giant ball suspended from the roof of the Grand Palais during the Solutions COP21 in Paris, France, December 4, 2015 as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues at Le Bourget near the French capital. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

On the ferries that crisscross Sydney’s harbour, passengers sit inside hunched over their smartphones, often ignoring the gorgeous scenery afforded by what some describe as the world’s most beautiful commute.

Two new monster movies are being released in the lead-up to Christmas: the man-made creation of Victor Frankenstein, and Krampus, the evil counterpart to Father Christmas. The etymology of monstrosity suggests the complex roles that monsters play within society. “Monster” probably derives from the Latin, monstrare, meaning “to demonstrate”, and monere, “to warn”.

Islamic State is a master at using the Internet to spread propaganda. SPIEGEL ONLINE research indicates European companies may be providing the terrorist organization Internet access by satellite dish. … But how is it able to do so given that the group operates in a region where telecommunications infrastructure has been largely destroyed? The answer to this question is an extremely problematic one for Europe, for it is European companies that provide the terrorists with access to the platforms…